Public should keep eye on government use of 'bloated' unprogrammed funds — budget expert

MANILA, Philippines — The public must keep an eye on how the government will spend the unprogrammed appropriations it had “bloated” in the 2024 national budget, a budget expert cautioned on Tuesday, in light of recent proposals allowing the government to tap state firms’ revenues for unprogrammed funds.

With a whopping P450 billion added to unprogrammed funds during the closed-door meetings of the bicameral conference, the national budget had climbed to P6.2 trillion — above the P5.7 trillion ceiling outlined in the National Expenditure Program, said Zyza Suzara, executive director at iLead, a public finance think tank.

Unprogrammed appropriations are funds set aside for priority programs and projects that do not have allocated funds yet in the budget. These funds are a form of standby appropriations that are contingent upon the availability of additional revenues, such as windfall revenue collections or foreign loans.

“Because legislators who sat in the bicam had to make sure that there were guaranteed revenues to cover for the pork projects. And so they deprioritized some projects and put them in the unprogrammed appropriations, which doesn't have guaranteed funding,” Suzara said during an interview with ANC’s "Headstart."

Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel and former Sen. Panfilo Lacson flagged the insertion as unconstitutional, with Pimentel noting that the additional P450 billion was not requested by the executive branch.

Pimentel also said that this is the second year that Congress had bloated the unprogrammed funds.

Suzara said that what’s concerning about the bloated unprogrammed appropriations is a recent special provision proposed by the House of Representatives that includes the reserve funds of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) as a revenue source.

“This is very similar to the initial version of the Maharlika Investment Fund where Congress proposed that the treasury can basically sweep the cash of GOCCs,” Suzara said, referring to the initial proposal for the Maharlika Investment Fund to draw funds from GOCCs like the GSIS and SSS, which received widespread pushback.  

Current government rules only allow unprogrammed